Editing Galen (section)

==Biography==
Galen's Greek name {{lang|grc|Γαληνός}} (''Galēnós'') comes from the adjective {{lang|grc|γαληνός}} (''galēnós'') 'calm'.<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dgalhno%2Fs γαληνός],
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek–English Lexicon'', on Perseus Digital Library</ref> Galen's Latin name (Aelius or Claudius) implies he had [[Roman citizenship]].<ref>[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-review/article/abs/galen-and-roman-medicine-or-can-a-greek-become-a-latin/7257B40ABA94E375F6253389004D8DE4 Galen and roman medicine]</ref>

Galen describes his early life in ''On the affections of the mind''. He was born in September 129 AD.<ref name="nutton73"/> His father, [[Aelius Nicon]], was a wealthy [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]], an architect and builder, with eclectic interests including philosophy, mathematics, logic, astronomy, agriculture and literature. Galen describes his father as a "highly amiable, just, good and benevolent man". At that time [[Pergamon]] (modern-day [[Bergama]], Turkey) was a major cultural and intellectual centre, noted for its [[Library of Pergamum|library]], second only to that in Alexandria,<ref name="brock"/><ref name="metzger">[https://books.google.com/books?id=NrEeAAAAIAAJ Metzger BM. New Testament Studies: Philological, Versional, and Patristic. Brill 1980], {{ISBN|978-90-04-06163-7}}</ref> as well as being the site of a [[Asclepeion|large temple]] to the healing god [[Asclepius]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Galen {{!}} Biography, Achievements, & Facts|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Galen|access-date=18 December 2020|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref> The city attracted both [[Stoicism|Stoic]] and [[Platonism|Platonic]] philosophers, to whom Galen was exposed at age 14. His studies also took in each of the principal philosophical systems of the time, including [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] and [[Epicurean]]. His father had planned a traditional career for Galen in philosophy or politics and took care to expose him to literary and philosophical influences. However, Galen states that in around 145 his father had a dream in which the god [[Asclepius]] appeared and commanded Nicon to send his son to study medicine.<ref name="nutton73"/><ref name=":0"/>

===Medical education===
Following his earlier liberal education, Galen at age 16 began his studies at the prestigious local healing temple or [[asclepeion]] as a θεραπευτής (''therapeutes'', or attendant) for four years. There he came under the influence of men like [[Aeschrion of Pergamon]], Stratonicus and Satyrus. Asclepiea functioned as spas or sanitoria to which the sick would come to seek the ministrations of the priesthood. Romans frequented the temple at Pergamon in search of medical relief from illness and disease. It was also the haunt of notable people such as the historian Claudius Charax, the orator [[Aelius Aristides]], the sophist [[Polemon of Laodicea|Polemo]], and the consul [[Cuspius Rufinus]].

Galen's father died in 148, leaving Galen independently wealthy at the age of 19. He then followed the advice he found in Hippocrates' teaching<ref>{{cite web|url=http://daedalus.umkc.edu/hippocrates/HippocratesLoeb1/page.66.php?size=240x320|title=Hippocrates Collected Works I|website=daedalus.umkc.edu|access-date=11 December 2009|archive-date=30 September 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930083013/http://daedalus.umkc.edu/hippocrates/HippocratesLoeb1/page.66.php?size=240x320|url-status=dead}}</ref> and traveled and studied widely including such destinations as [[Smyrna]] (now [[İzmir]]), [[Roman Corinth|Corinth]], [[Crete]], [[Cilicia]] (now [[Çukurova]]), [[Cyprus]], and finally the great medical school of [[Medicine in ancient Greece|Alexandria]], exposing himself to the various schools of thought in medicine. In 157, aged 28, he returned to Pergamon as physician to the gladiators of the High Priest of Asia, one of the most influential and wealthy men in Asia. Galen claims that the High Priest chose him over other physicians after he eviscerated an ape and challenged other physicians to repair the damage. When they refused, Galen performed the [[surgery]] himself and in so doing won the favor of the High Priest of Asia. Over his four years there, he learned the importance of diet, fitness, hygiene, and preventive measures, as well as living anatomy, and the treatment of fractures and severe trauma, referring to their [[wounds]] as "windows into the body". Only five deaths among the gladiators occurred while he held the post, compared to sixty in his predecessor's time, a result that is in general ascribed to the attention he paid to their wounds. At the same time he pursued studies in theoretical medicine and philosophy.<ref name="nutton73"/><ref name="ustun">Ustun C. Galen and his anatomic eponym: Vein of Galen. Clinical Anatomy Volume 17 Issue 6 454–457, 2004</ref><ref name="grant">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tyip3Kf68TYC&pg=PP9|title=Galen on Food and Diet|last1=Galen|first2=Mark|last2=Grant|date= 2018|publisher=Psychology Press|via=Google Books|isbn=9780415232333}}</ref><ref>Gleason, M. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome. Princeton 1995</ref>

===Rome===
[[File:Claudius Galenus (1906) - Veloso Salgado.png|thumb|upright=.9|Galen dissecting a monkey, as imagined by [[Veloso Salgado]] in 1906]]

Galen went to [[Ancient Rome|Rome]] in 162 and made his mark as a practicing physician. His public demonstrations and impatience with alternative views on medicine brought him into conflict with other doctors practicing in the city.<ref name=":0"/> When the [[Peripatetic school|Peripatetic]] philosopher Eudemus became ill with [[quartan fever]], Galen felt obliged to treat him "since he was my teacher and I happened to live nearby".<ref>Luis Garcia-Ballester, 2002, Galen and Galenism, Burlington: Ashgate-Variorum, p. 1641</ref> He wrote: "I return to the case of Eudemus. He was thoroughly attacked by the three attacks of quartan ague, and the doctors had given him up, as it was now mid-winter."<ref>Arthur John Brock, 1929, ''Greek Medicine'', London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., p. 207.</ref> Some Roman physicians criticized Galen for his use of the [[prognosis]] in his treatment of Eudemus. This practice conflicted with the then-current [[Standard treatment|standard of care]], which relied upon [[divination]] and [[mysticism]]. Galen retaliated against his detractors by defending his own methods. Garcia-Ballester quotes Galen as saying: "In order to diagnose, one must observe and reason." This was the basis of his criticism of the doctors who proceeded alogos and askeptos.<ref>Luis Garcia-Ballester, 2002, Galen and Galenism, Burlington: Ashgate-Variorum, p. 1663</ref>

However, Eudemus warned Galen that engaging in conflict with these physicians could lead to his assassination. "Eudemus said this, and more to the same effect; he added that if they were not able to harm me by unscrupulous conduct they would proceed to attempts at poisoning. Among other things he told me that, some ten years before, a young man had come to the city and had given, like me practical demonstrations of the resources of our art; this young man was put to death by poison, together with two servants who accompanied him."<ref>Arthur John Brock, 1929, ''Greek Medicine'', London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., p. 212.</ref> When Galen's animosity with the Roman medical practitioners became serious, he feared he might be exiled or poisoned, so he left the city.<ref name="Eichholz">D.E. Eichholz, 1951, ''Galen and His Environment, Greece & Rome'' 20 no. 59, Cambridge University Press, pp. 60–71</ref>

Rome was engaged in foreign wars in 161; [[Marcus Aurelius]] and his then co-Emperor and adoptive brother [[Lucius Verus]] were in the north fighting the [[Marcomanni]].<ref>Elizabeth C. Evans, 1956, ''Galen the Physician as Physiognomist'', American Philological Association</ref> During the autumn of 169 when Roman troops were returning to [[Aquileia]], a great plague, most likely one of the first appearances of smallpox (then referred to as the [[Antonine Plague]]) in the Mediterranean world, broke out, and the emperor summoned Galen back to Rome. He was ordered to accompany Marcus and Verus to Germany as the court physician. The following spring Marcus was persuaded to release Galen after receiving a report that [[Asclepius]] was against the project.<ref name="Littman">R. J. Littman and M. L. Littman, 1973 Galen and the Antonine Plague, The American Journal of Philology 94 no. 3, pp. 243–255</ref> He was left behind to act as physician to the imperial heir [[Commodus]]. It was here in court that Galen wrote extensively on medical subjects. Ironically, Lucius Verus died in 169, and Marcus Aurelius himself died in 180, both victims of the plague.

Galen was the physician to Commodus for much of the emperor's life and treated his common illnesses. According to Dio Cassius 72.14.3–4, in about 189, under Commodus' reign, a pestilence occurred which at its height killed 2,000 people a day in Rome. This was most likely the same plague (the so-called "Antonine Plague" and most likely smallpox) that struck Rome during Marcus Aurelius' reign.<ref name="Littman"/> Galen was also physician to [[Septimius Severus]] during his reign in Rome. He complimented Severus and [[Caracalla]] on keeping a supply of drugs for their friends and mentioned three cases in which they had been of use in 198.<ref name=Eichholz/>

===The Antonine Plague===
The [[Antonine Plague]] was named after Marcus Aurelius' family name of Antoninus. It was also known as the Plague of Galen and held an important place in medicinal history because of its association with Galen. He had first-hand knowledge of the disease, and was present in Rome when it first struck in 166, and was also present in the winter of 168–69 during an outbreak among troops stationed at Aquileia. He had experience with the epidemic, referring to it as very long lasting, and described its symptoms and his treatment of it. His references to the plague are scattered and brief. Galen was not trying to present a description of the disease so that it could be recognized in future generations; he was more interested in the treatment and physical effects of the disease. For example, in his writings about a young man afflicted with the plague, he concentrated on the treatment of internal and external ulcerations. According to Niebuhr, "this pestilence must have raged with incredible fury; it carried off innumerable victims. The ancient world never recovered from the blow inflicted upon it by the plague that visited it in the reign of M. Aurelius."
The mortality rate of the plague was 7–10 percent; the outbreak in 165–168 would have caused approximately 3.5 to 5 million deaths. [[Otto Seeck]] believes that over half the population of the empire perished. J. F. Gilliam believes that the Antonine plague probably caused more deaths than any other epidemic during the empire before the mid-3rd century.<ref name=Littman/> Although Galen's description is incomplete, it is sufficient to enable a firm identification of the disease as related to [[smallpox]].

Galen notes that the [[exanthema]] covered the victim's entire body and was usually black. The exanthem became rough and scabby where there was no ulceration. He states that those who were going to survive developed a black exanthem. According to Galen, it was black because of a remnant of blood putrefied in a fever blister that was pustular. His writings state that raised blisters were present in the Antonine plague, usually in the form of a blistery rash. Galen states that the skin rash was close to the one [[Thucydides]] described. Galen describes symptoms of the alimentary tract via a patient's diarrhea and stools. If the stool was very black, the patient died. He says that the amount of black stools varied. It depended on the severity of the intestinal lesions. He observes that in cases where the stool was not black, the black exanthema appeared. Galen describes the symptoms of fever, vomiting, fetid breath, [[catarrh]], cough, and ulceration of the larynx and trachea.<ref name=Littman/>

===Later years===
Galen continued to work and write in his final years, finishing treatises on drugs and remedies as well as his compendium of diagnostics and therapeutics, which would have much influence as a medical text both in the [[Science in the middle ages|Latin Middle Ages]] and [[Islamic Golden Age|Medieval Islam]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|last=Hankinson|first=R. J.|title=The man and his work|date=2008|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-galen/man-and-his-work/25F9E23C8EAC769F17D7F5CFDE8C7659|work=The Cambridge Companion to Galen|pages=1–33|editor-last=Hankinson|editor-first=R. J.|series=Cambridge Companions to Philosophy|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-81954-1}}</ref>

The 11th-century ''[[Suda]]'' lexicon states that Galen died at the age of 70, which would place his death in about the year 199. However, there is a reference in Galen's treatise ''"On Theriac to Piso"'' (which may, however, be spurious) to events of 204. There are also statements in Arabic sources<ref>Amari, M. Biblioteca Arabo-sicula, 2nd vol., Loscher, Turin, Rome, pp. 503–504.</ref> that he died in Sicily at age 87, after 17 years studying medicine and 70 practicing it, which would mean he died about 216. According to these sources, the tomb of Galenus in [[Palermo]] was still well preserved in the tenth century. Nutton<ref>{{cite book|last =Nutton |first =V.|title = Ancient Medicine |publisher = Routledge|date = 2004|pages = 226–227|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=I8yIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA226|isbn = 9781134884568}}</ref> believes that ''"On Theriac to Piso"'' is genuine, that the Arabic sources are correct, and that the ''Suda'' has erroneously interpreted the 70 years of Galen's career in the Arabic tradition as referring to his whole lifespan. Boudon-Millot<ref>Boudon-Millot V (ed. and trans.) Galien: Introduction générale; Sur l'ordre de ses propres livres; Sur ses propres livres; Que l'excellent médecin est aussi philosophe Paris: Les Belles Lettres. 2007, lxxvii–lxxx</ref> more or less concurs and favors a date of 216.